


Doze off

by meddowstaylor



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Early 70s, Hand Jobs, M/M, Masturbation, Maylor - Freeform, Smut, blink-and-you-miss-it deacury, sleepy and anxious drummers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-09 19:15:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17412647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meddowstaylor/pseuds/meddowstaylor
Summary: Finals week finds the four members of Queen bunking together in Brian and Roger’s flat, and an stressed Roger climbing into Brian’s bed. Unable to fall asleep because of his racing mind, Brian lends a hand to his friend to get him to relax, and Roger tries not to think about what it actual means besides a mere physical attraction.





	Doze off

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This mess came to me in the midst of my own finals week, insomniac and maylor starved. MAJOR thanks to my beta reader, clever friend and life savior Peg for reading over this and providing two types of feedback: the teacher, editing type and the encouraging “they are so awesome but dumb and in love” type. I owe you so much !

Although he was trying to be as silent as possible, it seemed like all of his surroundings plus his body were conspiring against Roger to make the biggest mess possible - almost tripping on some discarded shoes on the kitchen floor, running into scattered furniture, knocking books off their table. His legs were numb from sitting for hours and his headache was so strong it was on the verge of making him dizzy.

Hearing the floor creak with every step he took towards his room, Roger tried to listen carefully for any sign of life in their flat. Having Freddie and John bunk with Brian and him for finals week seemed like a good idea at the time. They could rehearse or finish a song whenever they had a minute free—or they desperately needed a break—but with only two beds, finding somewhere to sleep was an every man for himself situation: the last one up simply had to look for a spot to crash in. He peaked through his bedroom door and there, in a mess of limbs, were Freddie and John. Roger missed his bed but knew better than to nudge Deaky awake. Freddie’s soft snores indicated he was also lost in a deep slumber, and John looked so peaceful he finally resembled the 20 year old he was. 

He turned around and made his way across the hall, where Brian had gone to sleep hours ago. Roger’s body still seemed to be in its peak clumsiest state, but he tried his best to open the door carefully, relishing in how the atmosphere in his friend’s room was always so different from anywhere else - calm, secluded and safe. 

When he finally reached the bed he threw caution out the window and just flopped next to Brian. He was too exhausted to keep being careful, and the pale light peeking through the blinds threatened the imminent sunrise.

Still, Brian didn’t move. Roger figured burying his nose even deeper than usual in a book had also taken a toll on him. He could hear his soft breathing; for a moment Roger let it wash over him, calming his anxiety about exams. He tried to lull himself to sleep with it, like he did when Brian hummed mindlessly while diagramming star clusters, while Roger power-napped between flashcard sets on their couch. But soon he found that while he was comfortable and much calmer than before, luxuriating in the change from chain-smoking in their living room and trying to memorize protein interactions, sleep simply refused to come. 

3.00 am

If he fell asleep right this second, it would mean four hours of sleep. 

3.17

Three hours, forty-three minutes. 

3.18

His mind seemed determined to keep spinning. Diagrams of cell evolution, metabolic reactions, quarters over semi notes on their new song, lyrics scratched out and re written, formulas mixing up with the thump of John’s bass, dates of exams overlapping with pub gigs—no matter how tight he shut his eyes or how he shifted under the covers, his thoughts wouldn’t settle, louder than any crowd they’d ever played for or song they’d performed..

He turned again, his back to Brian’s peaceful, sleeping frame… 

“Lucky bastard”, Roger muttered.

The heat of the room was suffocating. Roger pulled the blankets down with a huff, rolling onto his back to stare at the ceiling. Brian’s room was always tidy and welcoming, but he usually felt like a kid in a fancy store, the imminent risk of touching something valuable and fragile and breaking it hovering over him. The little glow-in-the-dark stars that he and Freddie had stuck on there as a joke winked down at him. 

3.40

Barely over 3 bloody hours. He was practically falling asleep on top of his notes when he called it quits, and now he felt like he might vibrate out of his own skin. He just needed to sleep. They’d planned to get up at 7, for an hour of band practice before class, but at this rate, he’d sleep right through his alarm.  Probably he’d be sleepwalking around work this afternoon, if he couldn’t sneak a nap in one of the dressing rooms and risk his boss scolding him. 

4.05 

He just needed to fall asleep—

“Are you going to keep tossing around like that?”

Roger startled at Brian’s low voice, rough with sleep and irritation. He was taken aback by the closeness of it, and by the fact that his friend was awake, apparently also lying on his back staring at the ceiling, finally disturbed by the wreckage Roger was causing.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. And then, “I just can’t sleep.” He glanced at the clock sitting on the dresser across Brian’s bed. “4.06, that means a bit less than three hours.”

“You know you’re not gonna sleep if you keep counting like that.”  
Roger remembered Brian also had to get up at 7 and felt a pang of guilt for crashing in his bed instead of on the couch, even if that meant waking up so tense he could barely sit straight behind his drum kit. 

“Just relax. I dunno, what do you usually think about when you can’t sleep?” Brian said, the usual gentleness back to his voice.

Roger really didn’t want to get into what he thought of when sleepless night plagued him. Not here, not in his mate’s bed. 

Of course, telling yourself that you shouldn’t think about something always resulted in thinking of nothing but that. So there he was. Counting down how many hours, minutes of sleep he’d get and unable to stop thinking about jerking off. And that was out of the question. He supposed he could get up and walk all the way to their bathroom down the hall, but whereas his mind was racing faster by the second, his body was so tired he couldn’t get his feet to move. Even if he’d been alone, he was so burnt out that he couldn’t lift his hands a millimeter. 

“You’re still tense.” Brian sighed in frustration next to him. “Is something bothering you?”

Other than his sudden and completely inappropriate hard-on?. “Just a bit worried about my exam, that’s all.” He was aiming for a whisper, but instead he ended up with something closer to a groan. A flush crept up his neck. 

“Relax, you’ve been studying a surprising amount for your standards.” Brian chuckled, and boy, that didn’t help - how Brian’s voice resonated in the quiet room and how the bed moved because of his laugh. It all went straight to his groin, and Roger squirmed uncomfortably next to him. “Seriously, not sleeping is not gonna do you any favors.” At least Brian had attributed his fidgeting to pre exam nerves.

“If I fail, then I’ll have an excuse to drop out and just focus on playing music all the time,” Roger half-joked. “Or I’ll just quit the band too and move back into my mum’s basement. ” He bit his lip, regretting how vulnerable he sounded as soon as the words left his mouth. 

“Hey. Don’t talk like that.” Brian scooted over so that his back was against the wall and he lay on his side, facing Roger. “You are an amazing drummer and a…pretty decent biology student. I can certainly see you as a biologist more than a dentist.” He laughed. 

_Oh, God_. Roger had heard Brian laugh a thousand times before, sometimes even this close to him, pilled in the back of a car or leaning over his shoulder to peek at a song he was writing. But in the dark of that room, surrounded by heavy silence as they were, Brian’s earnest, throaty chuckle was turning Roger’s semi into more serious business. 

“You just need to relax,” Brian said, lightly tapping his hand over Roger’s stomach. When he moved to pull back, Roger’s hand grasped his wrist, almost without his permission. He didn’t know why—all he knew was that he had instantly felt better when he felt his friend’s warm touch. He told himself he needed to let go now, but he couldn’t. Through his shirt he could feel Brain’s fingers, the same that worked tirelessly over his guitar and that were always getting paper cuts from the heavy books that he carried around. He just knew he wasn’t ready to let go. So he moved his own hand above Brian’s, feeling Brian’s fingers press to the middle of his ribcage. 

The only thing breaking the silence was the pounding of Roger’s pulse in his ears.  He closed his eyes to keep from looking at the damned clock across him. Brian’s words kept repeating over his head, filling the space recently taken by annotations and chords. 

_“Just relax.”_  
It was probably close to 5 anyways.  
_“Just relax.”_  
He could always take a nap after lunch before his shift at the market.  
_“Just relax.”_  
Brian was wrong, he would make an awful biologist.  
_“Just relax.”_ -  
_And you need to let go, you idiot_ , he told himself. But Brian hadn’t moved his hand either. And without realizing how, but not surprised by it either, Roger found himself slighting pushing Brian’s hand down, guiding it with his own.

He shivered slightly when Brian’s fingers brushed over his navel. They stopped right at the hem of his worn-out shirt. Only then did he hear Brian’s voice.

“Rog..”

“Shh. You said it yourself, I just need to relax.” Now Roger did surprise himself. It was one thing to have his friend’s hand travel right above his hip bone; he could write it off as a somnolent action. This was another thing. Another completely different thing. 

He pushed Brian’s hand further down, running it over the elastic of his boxers. He felt Brian’s fingers moving on their own underneath his, slightly digging at his flesh and grazing the trail of hair. Everywhere those long fingers touched him felt like he was burning up. Roger was suddenly and embarrassingly aware of just how hard he was. He lifted his hand from Brian’s, tracing an almost phantom touch all the way up his elbow. He could feel goosebumps emerging on Brian’s arms—made him catch his breath and stir involuntarily in his underwear, Brian’s hand going painfully still. 

He suddenly felt as awake as he’d ever been, alert and almost tingling with it throughout every part of his body. While Brian’s fingers just pushed deeper into his lower belly, tracing the indentations his tight jeans had left from side to side, a small part of Roger’s mind scrambled to come up with excuses for the next morning: _“it’s just a common thing, just a friend helping another friend, it doesn’t mean anything, every stressed guy went through this and they could laugh it off”, “probably some band bonding, same stuff every group deals with”_ — he was thinking up justifications because he knew there was no way he could stop this from happening, or that he would ever want to. The running loop of justifications helped him to ignore the idea that maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t about relaxing and getting some rest. Maybe this was about something else all together.

Suddenly, every thought other than pure, unadulterated need flew from Roger’s mind. Brian had removed his fingers from where they were tugging at his elastic band, but the blonde didn’t have time to mourn their absence, because one second later Brian was tracing the outline of his shamelessly hard dick over his briefs. Roger heard his own gasp as if it was uttered by someone else, and when he involuntarily bucked his hips up to increase the friction that wasn’t light but definitely not direct enough, he could have swore he felt Brian growl next to him.

Roger squeezed his eyes tightly shut as Brian cupped him, hollowing his palm to rub him just a bit faster. Little dots of color appeared in the blackness before his eyes; he knew he had lost control completely over his panting breathing and the twitches his cock made from underneath Brian’s hand. When he took his thumb and swiftly rubbed over the tip, Roger’s eyes flung open and he let out a long, incomprehensible groan, followed by a single “fuck…” as he caught sight of Brian beside him. 

Some part of Roger was sure this was going to break the spell, that the delicious feeling he was experiencing was detached from the person causing it—and that seeing one of his closest friends getting him off was going to ruin everything. But the moment Roger’s eyes met Brian’s, the moment he saw the intense concentration and hunger there, well,  couldn’t deny the fact that it was one of the hottest sights he’d ever seen. As if thinking the same thing, Brian squeezed the base of his cock once more before reaching into his boxers and focusing on the tip that had already dampened his underwear. Roger closed his eyes once more, not to block out the image before him, but because the sensation of Brian’s fingers against his skin was too overwhelming for him to keep steady. 

He’d never been lacking for female company—a cute brunette had given him a handjob and some quick head after their last gig, just a few days go—and he certainly wasn’t touch-starved or anything., And yet, somehow, he wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to last or why he couldn’t help the primal sounds that were escaping him. Nothing he’d ever done before had felt like this, like every nerve ending in his body was on fire. For a few seconds, he thought about Brian lying on top of him, pressing his whole body down to keep him in place, sucking at his neck, instead of clumsily propped by one arm on his side next to him like they were right now. 

The picture he was painting in his mind—one where both of them were enjoying this, where he could see Brian’s face twist up in pleasure as he was sure his own was at the moment—made him let out a shaky, “B-Brian…yes oh fuck,” that echoed in the empty room.

This time he clearly heard Brian mumble, “god, Roger,” in a deep voice he had never heard before. The mention of his name combined with the fast pace that Brian was now leading edged him closer to the end. He forced himself to open his eyes and tilt his head sideways slightly so that when he came seconds later he was biting his lower lip and looking directly into Brian’s eyes, pupils blown wide with arousal. He had no idea why he had done that, but it made every moment from his release to his comedown so much more intense, something intimate and strangely sweet lurking under the wave of pleasure washing over him. He registered Brian rolling to his back and trying to calm his breathing as well and hazily took notice of a mop of curls brushing against his shoulders. He was beyond excuses now, but he knew his brain was going to rush to come up with some the moment he woke up tomorrow..

But that would be a problem for awake Roger, the same that would have to deal with looking at Brian when they were rehearsing in the morning. Right now it seemed like his friend was correct—all he needed was to relax and sleep would come on its own. He felt all of the day’s exhaustion flooding through him, and as if from far away he thought he heard Brian say something, but for the life of him, Roger couldn’t figure out what. So before he could make out what maybe were words of doubt or rejection—something he dreaded thinking about—Roger took a chance and rolled over so that they were lying exactly opposite as before, with Brian on his back and Roger turned on his side, facing him. 

The last alert part of his brain registered his sleeping shirt being damp and sticky, so he pulled it over his head and tossed it onto the floor, Then, he threw his arms around Brian’s waist and settled on top of his chest. The warmth of Brian’s chest and the subtle movements of his breathing, mixed with his post-orgasm calm meant he could finally feel sleep approaching. The last thing he felt was a slender hand toying idly with his hair and caressing the back of his neck as he drifted off into darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! feedback is appreciated since it's my first work for this fandom and pairing


End file.
